NEC Birmingham, UK

Don't forget the Show next week, it is for two days and I have our hotel
booked, so might have a hang-over on the second day, lol
I have some great bugs to show them on the Solidworks stand, and they are
repeatable on any PC.
One requires a full close-down of Solidworks to get rid of.
But, and I mean a big but, I am there to learn, not condemn.
Every cad program is going to be there, as far as I know.
I wonder if SolidEdge and VX are going?
This is the biggest show in the UK, but we don't always get the sun, Like
Florida, lol
I will let you know who is not.
Could be interesting.
If you have any questions that you would like me to ask, fire away.
I will print them off and hand them over.
Please be as complete, as you can, thank you.

 

Great Pete, Trying to go myself for similar reasons. Plus to see who
can do micro-cnc of gears.

My list of q's for solidworks is..
1. Reliability - ie the instability usually using assemblies with
multiple configs and parts with multiple configs. When will they get it
- without reliability extra functions are accademic !
2. When will 'save-as' a previous version be added to avoid all the
angst when upgrading (eg who uses sp0 for mission critical stuff ??)
AND especially when other colaborators (suppliers or customers) have
not yet up graded.
3. More intuitive to get complex stuff - why do I have to seek out and
thro (the excellent) curvy stuff 101, 201, 301 etc. ??? (eg
work-arounds get the job done BUT I want better thought thro, and more
user centred interfaces).
4. More intelligent rads ! I dont want to have to do things in a
certain order to acheive a rad or blend (which would be a doddle with a
file or some epoxy filler).

I know ... all this stuff can be learnt and i do, BUT I cant help but
think it could be better - I just want a tool, to best put designs
accurately into 3D. I hope I can cut thro the time wasting BS and the
'set demos' at the NEC show to see what is happening in these areas on
other CAD systems. #

It maybe Solidworks has the best balance of power and ease of use.....

 

Yup - going myself to see whats happening. Went to SM2001 (I think -
feels decades ago!) and it helped decide on Solidworks as the best tool
for the job at the time (interestingly, VX came a close second for what
we were doing!). This time it's a case of seeing if anyone can do stuff
better - dealing with curvy IGES import, not making a big issue of
intersection lines and getting information back out to CNC plasma in 2D
for nesting.
Totally agree on the reliability issue though - it's got to be no 1.
saying that, so far is see Solidworks on a par with Maya for number of
crashes per day, so I do wonder whether other applications are just as
bad.....